Merlin's Guide to Investigating Strange Events in Camelot
by rubberglue
Summary: Investigating is all in a day's work for Merlin. In fact, he prides himself as a bit of an expert.


**Step 1: Unearth a crisis (If there is none, create one)**

"Should you really be playing with those things?" Gwen looked suspiciously at the spread of knick knacks on her table. Merlin was poking and prodding at them with far too much enthusiasm for Gwen's comfort. "Should you really be playing with those things in my house?"

"Isn't it fascinating what you can find hidden in the dungeons? Arthur doesn't even know half these things exist. Ooh! Look at this little bauble - so shiny." Ignoring Gwen's expression of concern, he peered at the locket he grasped in his hands. "There are some words here … ugh … I can't read them. Pass me a cloth Gwen."

"No. Merlin maybe you should be a little more careful?" Gwen edged closer to her door. This way, she could easily make a break for it should something explode or come to life.

Seemingly unperturbed by Gwen's lack of cooperation, Merlin scrubbed the locket on his sleeve and continued staring at it.

Then a bright beam of light shot from it, temporarily blinding Gwen.

"What did you do?"

"Umm, nothing I think." Merlin looked around the small house. Shrugging his shoulders, he grinned widely and said, "Well, everything looks fine. Guess nothing went wrong. I should go now."

Somehow Gwen was not comforted by his words.

"Hey!" She yelled at Merlin as he opened the door, "take your things with you!"

**Step 2: Spy to ascertain presence of crisis**

Arthur just flickered in front of her. She blinked. Perhaps she was still affected by the light from yesterday.

His left arm flickered again.

"Gwen? Are you listening to me?"

"Are you feeling alright Arthur?" She wondered if she touched his left arm, would her hand pass through?

Arthur frowned at her. "I am. In fact, I've never felt better, as I was saying just now. For some reason, I'm feeling a lot lighter!"

"Uh … great." It looked like his left index finger had disappeared. "Look, umm … I need to go do some castle stuff. You should stay in your room. You don't look so good." Gwen pressed a kiss against his cheek and scuttled off. She had to find Merlin. What on earth was going on?

Perhaps asking Merlin for help wasn't the best idea. For some reason, she was now hiding behind the curtains in Arthur's chambers.

"Why are we here?"

"Because the two of us can't fit into the closet?"

She stepped on Merlin's foot. "Ow! Ok ok. We need to observe Arthur! See if he's still flickering and see if there are any strange things afoot."

"Why can't we observe him in public?"

"Erm … well … because this is how it's done. Hush! He's here!"

Arthur entered his room, pulling off his shirt as he moved towards his bed. Gwen gulped and looked away. It was just wrong to stare at Arthur with Merlin next to her.

"Look! He has no left hand!" Merlin poked her side and involuntarily she yelped.

"Who's there?" Arthur grabbed his sword and scanned his room. Seeing that they were going to be found anyway, Gwen stepped out from the curtains. "Gwen! Well, why are you here at this time?" His voice dropped to a soft whisper.

"Er … I can explain that!" Merlin popped out as well.

"Merlin! What is this?"

"A surprise party?"

"Merlin …" Pointing his sword at Merlin, Arthur advanced menacingly.

"Arthur, did you notice your hand is missing?" Gwen quickly interrupted them.

"What?!" And it seemed for the first time, Arthur noticed that his left arm appeared to end at his wrist.

Merlin smiled a little sheepishly, "I think you might be disappearing."

**Step 3: Consult Gaius and the library**

Gaius raised an eyebrow as he listened to Merlin describe how Arthur seemed to be slowly disappearing.

"He's not feeling any pain or discomfort but right now, you can't see his left arm and his left ear. They're still there though because you can feel them."

"What have you done now?"

Merlin frowned, "nothing!"

"Are you sure?" Gaius eyed Merlin suspisciously, with good reason Gwen decided. Seeing that Merlin was either reluctant to confess or was unable to put two and two together, Gwen quickly mentioned the incident with the locket.

"Then you should find out what kind of locket it was shouldn't you? I assume you still have it?"

As they trudged to the library, Merlin kept grumbling about how disloyal Gwen was. In response, Gwen rolled her eyes and allowed Merlin to complain in peace.

Geoffrey sat guard in the front of the library, looking intently at one of the many dusty tomes on his table.

"You distract him, I'll do the research!" whispered Merlin, shoving Gwen towards Geoffrey as he darted behind a pillar.

"Hi! I was wondering about my father's family and I hear you're the man to ask," Gwen flashed what she hoped was her most charming smile.

Geoffrey loved genealogy and prided himself on his broad knowledge in the area, something Gwen discovered after she spent almost an hour listening to him explain to her that Kathleen Arbour was not really her great-great-great grandmother despite records. From the corner of her eye, she saw a pleased Merlin dart out from the shelves. Bidding a somewhat shocked Geoffrey an abrupt thank you and good bye, she wandered off, casually meeting up with Merlin further down the corridors.

**Step 4: Attempt solution and make things worse**

"Yuck! Are you trying to kill me?"

"Well, the book in the library said this potion would work."

Merlin and Gwen stood staring at half a Arthur wondering how long the potion would take to cure him.

Five minutes later, it was clear that instead of making him visible, the potion had managed to speed up the process. In fact the only part of Arthur that was visible were his feet and even then they were flickering. Unfortunately, Arthur not being visible didn't stop him from being heard and he made his unhappiness with Merlin's "incompetence" loud and clear.

"Guess that wasn't the solution," muttered Merlin disappointingly.

"Did you read the instructions correctly?" Gwen asked, trying to keep the alarm out of her voice. She couldn't see Arthur's feet at all now and only his grumbling gave her a clue of where he was.

"I think so! Damn."

"We need to go back and check the book again," she tugged at Merlin.

"No. I have a better idea."

**Step 5: Visit the Great Dragon**

Gwen had never been face to face with a dragon before and she discovered, to her great relief, that it wasn't quite as scary as she thought it would be. The dragon looked familiar and she thought it was the one which had tried to destroy Camelot from before but Merlin had been quite adamant that it wasn't. She supposed all dragons tended to look the same.

There was quite a bit of shouting and stubbornness on Merlin's side before the dragon gave up the secret of how to break the curse. Apparently Merlin could speak Dragon. She wondered what other secrets he was keeping.

"Why didn't we just ask him from the beginning? He seems to know everything."

"Because that's not how it works! You aren't very good at this whole detective thing are you?"

**Step 6: Save the day without reward**

"You're telling me that I have to wear the locket around my neck and then let you break it by stabbing it with the fang of a snake?"

"That sounds about right!" Merlin chirped as he bounced the snake's fang in his hand.

"What if you kill me?"

"Would you rather be invisible forever?"

"No. But I would also like to be alive!"

"Gwen has a healing potion so if anything happens to you, she'll give it to you and all will be fine."

"Really?" Gwen smiled as reassuringly as she could in the direction she thought Arthur was. "Fine, let's do it. Soon there will be nothing left of me."

Gwen bit her lip as she watched Merlin lift the snake fang. With a swiftness she had never seen from Merlin before, he brought the fang down towards the locket which she assumed was lying on Arthur's neck.

She flinched and shut her eyes. But just before she did so, she thought she saw Merlin's eyes glow. Before she could wonder more about it, Arthur materialised in front of her. Delighted to see him whole and unharmed, she flung herself at him.

Merlin smiled at them, felt a little sorry for himself and left the room, giving them their privacy.

**Step 7: Have dinner with Gaius**

"I hope you learnt your lesson," Gaius lectured as he passed Merlin a plate with something unidentifiable, "about playing around with things you know nothing about."

"Mmm," Merlin said with his mouth full, "this is better than it looks."

"Don't forget. After you spent the whole day solving that problem you created, you still haven't done your chores." With that, Gaius sighed dramatically and left the room.


End file.
